Blacksmithing

Blacksmithing is one of WoW's crafting professions - it requires materials produced with another profession, usually Mining. Blacksmiths turn various reagents (mostly metals) into plate armor, weapons, and some utility items.

Unlike some of the more "magical" professions in the game, blacksmithing functions in a more direct fashion. While professions like Enchanting or Inscription provide subtle buffs to your character, blacksmithing hands you the item you need.

Aside from uncommon, rare, and even epic armor and weapons, blacksmithing doesn't have much else to offer. To compensate for this, however, blacksmiths have access to some very solid pre-raiding gear, as well as new PvE and PvP plans as the major content patches roll over. This is done to make sure that plate users will have need for blacksmiths as long as they need gear.

In order to purchase and learn all the new recipes currently available in Warlords of Draenor, you will need 190 True Iron Ore to perform all the cooldowns required to create the currency used to buy them, Secret of Draenor Blacksmithing.

Specializations

Blacksmiths no longer have specializations. If you are interested in the past of the profession, you could look into the 5 specializations smiths used to have: Armorsmithing, Weaponsmithing, Master Axesmithing, Master Hammersmithing, and Master Swordsmithing.

In Warlords of Draenor, Blacksmiths can purchase recipes with the item created via daily cooldown, Secrets of Draenor Blacksmithing. In addition, all Draenor crafting can be done from level 1 Blacksmithing onwards.

Guides

Related

Comments

Comment by hatman555

More on Profession-specific Perk

End game raiding.The two sockets that blacksmiths are allowed to add to their gear serve for a very practical raiding advantage. The socket type is colorless, meaning that any gem of any color will match the socket. This makes Blacksmith very alluring to any class or player.

The true advantage of blacksmithing comes from the ability to recustomize your gear. A paladin tank with blacksmithing gains the same amount of bonus stamina as a paladin tank with Mining's . Yet now our paladin tank wants to re-spec to Retrabution. In his Ret gear he will adds +80 to Strength via two Bold Inferno Ruby. Now instead of +120 stamina, which is only useful for survivability, our Blacksmithing paladin has an extra DPS boost.

Extra: Meshing well with JCBlacksmiths mesh very well with Jewelcrafters because a blacksmith has access to 2 additional colorless sockets, for a total of 3 colorless sockets with a belt buckle.Jewelcrafters need to put their 3 JC gems in their gear. While the gems can be put in any socket, always putting these gems in your colorless sockets makes switching gear is never a problem. When you replace gear, you will always be at 3 dragon's eyes and never worry about being over or under the limit.

Comment by Kritzman

Just thought I'd put up a quick list of Northrend blacksmithing plans that you do not learn straight from the trainers. All need 450 skill to learn. Most, with the exception of the first, are associated with a certain raid (Ulduar, Trial of the Crusader, or Icecrown Citadel) and have an associated crafting item (Runed Orb, Crusader Orb, or Primordial Saronite respectively). All are plate except for the shield enchant. Also, keep in mind that you are probably going to be getting most of these off the Auction House for anywhere between 500g and 1000g a pop.

Trial of the Crusader (ilvl 245) plans: Wrist and Chest slotsCrusader Orb used in crafting. (Crusader Orb)(All are rare drops from bosses in Trial of the Crusader. Each has a Horde and Alliance counterpart.)

Comment by Tankazoid

Im a tank and i dont know which one i should be weaponsmith or armorsmith

Comment by Hamstnerd

Will they be bringing armorsmithing and weaponsmithing back in cataclysm?

Comment by Nepturion

Skilling from 450 to 525!This is pretty hard if your not a miner.. i had 1300 of every wotlk ores, primals and good amount of gold before Cata. Did get to 479 with those mats. Grind alot and craft many at the same time!

With the Cata mats, i grinded near 1100 Elementium Ores around 290 Pyrite Ore and approx 164 Obsidium Ore and 80 different Volatile's.Took me around 2 days to skill max, had Engi and BS so was hard to skill anything without any gathering.

All of these ores are needed to skill and to get the recipes from vendor.This Ebonsteel Belt Buckle isnt worth that amount.Blizzard should have tweaked this abit, 1 more slot or if you socketing gloves and wrist you you get a socket bonus..

Comment by glasscannon

Can someone tell me why you'd bother to skill up BS past 410 or whatever it is once you can obtain socket bracer/gloves? BS has always been a money sink anyway, but I'm able to socket cata gems into my gloves/bracers at 425 BS. And I can't see any reason to invest gold into the profession as it's such a money loser.

Am I missing something obvious here? Does BS provide some other benefit to justify the further skilling up?

Comment by Eluzai

I hope they add more recipes in Cata.

I am a bs recipe collector, so far my situation is:

vanilla recipes: I miss a few world drops, let's say around 5-6 recipe + horde only onesTBC: 6 from rep (working on hero of shattrath) 5 from world dropswotlk: completed after a while (ulduar drops I hate you)Cataclysm: completed in one week -.-'

Seems that professions are leaning more and more towards specific perks (2 sockets in this case) and less towards the fun of having more recipes, being able to craft your own gear..indeed once you get the extra 2 sockets there's no reason to level bs

Well I am glad at least I still have people /w me asking for old vanilla and tbc crafts for looks and rp

Comment by Animosa

It's kinda sad, that they put out the specializations, they could have been remained as achievements, or/and bonus giver, for example, if you are an armorsmith, you have 25% chance to gain extra skill point, or to get get back some minerals after the armor making process.

Comment by Sunoril

Professions could probably have been done better. I suspect though that blizz is reacting at least in part to player feedback. Some players don't like specializations - because they don't like being restricted, and they want things to be easy.

According to ARL, the Light Skyforged Axe is learnable from trainers, but none of the trainers I've checked seem to have it. It seems to have been a Weaponsmith specialization thing. I thought all the specialty items were made generally trainable by any blacksmith when specializations went the way of the dodo. Is this thing still in the game?

Ah. Nevermind. If I look in the right place, ARL tells me it's bugged on the live servers. :-(

BS are now being highly sought after because the Chaos Orbs (Chaos Orb) are only obtained by killing bosses and they can not be exchanged or sold

Comment by zickzag

so disapointed, the new cataclysm plate lvling sets are for ret pally and arms warrior, but the tank items for warrior are just for lvl 85 and not for lvling :(

Comment by Viserate

I was kind of hoping there would be a decent pattern for shoulders w/o resilience. I have no problem keeping the current craftable shoulders but would like a second option with a more warrior oriented stat.

Comment by PrinceOshen

I've always wondered why Blacksmiths cant repair gear. If they can make it shouldnt they be able to repair it? Just saying it would make my life alot more easier if i didnt have to look for someone to fix my gear when my dungeon group sucked e.e stupid healers.

Comment by Animosa

Maybe i am wrong, but i think thak blacksmithing is somehow forgotten by Blizzard. The other craftsmen like engineers, alchemist, leatherworkers got a lot of crafts, that they can sell for a very big price, (like chopper, alchemy mount, flasks, bags, cloaks, enchants), and also they got their own special traits, like jeeves, engineering socket, trinkets, prismatic gems, etc. We blacksmiths got two professonrequired socket, and the belt buckets, of course, some low level shield and weapon enchant, but that's all. I'm not whining, do not misunderstand, but we could get more unique abilites, like PrinceOshen mentioned before self repair, or self enchant for plates and weapons.

Comment by nexxius2

I like tradeskills and have most to 500+ today but i would love for more low level gear, say shields that does not exist prior to 70 i think, more caster oriented weapons/armor for low levels would be nice to, at 30 my holy paladin is lacking int badly, and why can't we craft staffs or bows.

Comment by Hellzraven

How come the Obsidium Skeleton Key opens locks up to and including level 525 lockboxes, but the Titanium Skeleton Key which is learned at a higher level only opens up level 400 lockboxes? This is highly confusing, I am not complaining mind you in fact I am very grateful to the World of Warcraft team for this as is allows me to open locked chests and boxes way before the thieves in my guild which they hate. LOL

Comment by ShamanOne

Currently, my Blacksmith is at Level 475, but the trainer(s) have not provided training to make most of the items which are listed for Blacksmithing Level 425 in the table on this page.

Training for at least some of those items, if not all, are available at a higher level(s). As far as I can determine, making any item which requires Elementium is trained at Level 480 or higher.

I do not know when Blizzard changed the skill levels for making any of the items and/or changed anything else about them.

Comment by Frahaleah

Sorry if this may have been asked, but with the coming of 4.0.3 & the removal of the specializations, where would a blacksmith learn the old recipes that were part of the specializations?

Comment by skyburn1

Good news everyone! I spent an afternoon organizing Blacksmithing sets and pseudo sets without any true guidelines!I'd use those as a base to export them and match with other armor pieces, maybe even give me a good ol' beating showing me HOW to organize the sets (and pseudo-sets) for the new Transmogrification thing that should be coming in 4.3.TL;DRHereTheySeemToBeFound.

Since im in a level 25 Guild i get Bartering which is obtained with a level 24 Guild.Vendor price on items is 27Gold+ less with the Guild Perk.Blacksmiting Plans are now at 210Gold which is 90Gold cheaper.

Comment by Garahorn

BS has become useless other than the fact that they make belt buckles and the two sockets. I hope Blizzard makes changes to this profession to increase its appeal.

Comment by swangreek

I was wondering if there is any way to make Dragonstrike now that the specializations are gone. Thanks in advance!

Comment by drkknight80

So after a certain skill level I guess Blacksmiths "forget" how to make mail armor. I wish I would have known this BEFORE leveling Blacksmithing to 375. In my opinion, I think it's retarded for Leatherworkers to be able to make mail armor after a certain skill level but not Blacksmiths. Seriously, how does a leatherworker turn 12 Borean Leather into a mail armor? Sorry for the rant, I am sure there will be several replies flaming me, but it just irks me is all.

Comment by Farlo

So... where's the information? Does this have anything to do with the website going down earlier?

Comment by Verceus

We should be able to repair our own gear. I immediately assumed we could when I was a noob.

Comment by 2000kid

is it possible 2 unlearn blacksmithing?

Comment by RookieDeadmeat

For those Blacksmithing / Miners who don't want to go to the auction house to buy your leather, by Fishing up a chest (at high skill 225 and above so as to recieve the Fish Finder ability) there is a high probability the chest will contain leather (usually medium to heavy leather).

For me, fishing along the Westfall shore and river separating Westfall and Duskwood, 10 out of 15 Fishing sites gave me a trunk/chest, 5 out of 10 chests contained leather, 3 of which contained multiple pieces of medium leather (I have never found light leather this way), and 9 out of 10 contained silver coins. You must cast within the circle of fish. Keep casting untill it falls within the ripple in the water above the fish; appx 4 foot diameter.

Fishing seems to be a great secondary skill for a Mining/Blacksmith and you'll make a few coin in the process. Also this will help Starter Edition players get leather since they cannot sell, auction, or trade; and NO creature will drop leather to a player if they are a Mining/Blacksmith.

Hope this helps.

Comment by Modreduk

The anvil in Dalaran no longer seems to work for BS.It may be because it is now an enchanted anvil.

Comment by Chaix

the "ghost-forged" plans that blacksmiths learn early on in MoP can randomly create a ilv 415 blue instead of an ilv 384 green

Comment by realfix

I tried to trade in some black fallow ink to no avail. As there is only one glyph that uses the stuff, It is now totally useless. Since all Cataclysm herbs yield ashen pigment and turns into blackfallow ink the whole Cataclysm areas are not defunct and useless. The stuff is trash and so is Cataclysm. They have rendered it irrelevant in the whole of the games as well. It is useless to even visit these areas because the armors are weaker and have less useable stats than the Panda gear. All the epic gear I starved to learn and collect recipes for are irrelevant. Thanks for wasting my life! edit

Comment by Fonzy

A warning now to anyone leveling up Blacksmithing and Mining simultaneously, now that Cross-Realm Zones are live:

Because Hellfire Peninsula is essentially a bottleneck for both factions, you might find Fel Iron nodes in extremely short supply when you get to HFP. The good news is, however, that you only need to get Blacksmithing up to 350 to be able to start making Northrend/WotLK recipes (Cobalt), and there is a an Old World recipe that can get you up to 330 - Thorium Leggings.

My recommendation here is to spend the extra time in the Old World, farming up Thorium until you get up to 330. That way, you can decrease the need to farm up highly-contested Fel Iron and Adamantite in order to move in. Mining shouldn't be a problem, since you need to tap far fewer nodes than you need to harvest to get Blacksmithing up to the same level.

Take it from someone who did it the hard way, and spent hours flying circles around Outland, only to find the occasional node, and the less-than-occasional other player tapping them.

Haven't tested it, and I wouldn't want to if the prices in the AH are as high as they currently are.I'd prefer flying around the old regions, gathering ore.

Comment by Lithuen08

5.3 Training Projects GuideThis guide will tell you how much Ghost Iron you will need to farm/buy to get to level 500 BS

Pins - make 2 of these(2 bars total)

Simple Eating Utensils - make 6 of these(12 bars total)

*at this point you should be at skill lvl 63 or so. Time to upgrade blacksmithing skill*

Wok - make 2 of these(30 bars total)

Ladle - make 3 of these(12 bars total)

Poker - make 7 of these(140 bars total)

Hook - make 3 of these(27 bars total)

*at this point you should be at skill lvl 138 or so. Time to upgrade blacksmithing again*

Spatulas - make 3 of these(45 bars total)

Spoons - make 7 of these(140 bars total)

Spade - make 6 of these(150 bars total)

*at this point you should be at skill lvl 200. Time to upgrade blacksmithing again*

Needles - make 2 of these(2 bars total)

Barrel - make 5 of these(175 bars total)

Saw - make 5 of these(150 bars total)

Wire - make 2 of these(2 bars total)

Pot - make 15 of these(450 bars total)

*at this point you should be at skill lvl 290 or so. Time to upgrade blacksmithing again*

Cups - make 5 of these(200 bars total)

Bowls - make 6 of these(390 bars total)

Bells - make 5 of these(450 bars total)

*at this point you should be at skill lvl 350. Time to upgrade blacksmithing again*

Crate - make 6 of these(300 bars total)

Picks - make 9 of these(900 bars total)

*at this point you should be at skill lvl 425. Time to upgrade blacksmithing again*

Frames - make 7 of these(525 bars total)

Pans - make 6 of these(150 bars total)

Statue - make 2 of these(160 bars total)

CONGRATULATIONS! At this point you should be at skill lvl 500. Don't forget to upgrade blacksmithing and continue on with the regular recipes.

The total amount of bars needed for this guide amounts to 4412 or 8824 ore. Good Luck!

Comment by Xerczez

i have been collecting BS plans for quite a while now but am having an issue with the Ulduar plans...ive only gotten them from the AH..never seen one drop in the raid...are they only dropped in hard mode? only done that like twice but still no luck..done the raid on reg multiple times and still...zero...still need i think 2 from there...

Comment by Landrilis

I dropped Blacksmithing during Burning Crusade and had alot of old world recipes. I want to pick it up again and was wondering if Blizz will give back those recipes and /or the skill level I was at?

Comment by iamberean

I want to make the weapons that require the "Anvil of the Thunder Forges". I have done everything there is to do on Thunder island. I have not found anything new there in weeks and I often visit the Veiled Stairs too. Where is this blasted anvil so I can make these weapons lol .... feeling dumb :(

Comment by Sam97

I think that creators should add some BoE mounts and companions for blacksmithing profession .

Comment by Saucery

really wish this profession was more useful, only reason to level it or most other professions are just for the socket bonus or what ever your profession offers

Comment by Morguean

I am interested to see what potential changes will be coming to this profession once warlords hits.

with:

Fewer items can be enchanted, and the goal is to have enchants feel like a bonus instead of something mandatory.

Meta gems and socket bonuses are removed. Many fewer items will have sockets in Warlords of Draenor.

Either the sockets that blacksmithing gets will be more important... or what they would be removed?

Theory here, but if fewer items will have sockets, and they leave the sockets in the profession, wouldnt that just make more people want to take blacksmithing, making it feel more mandatory?

Comment by Vanthw

For those who wonder, u can combine the ''classic'' way of leveling with the ''Training Projects'' way( if u are 90 level).For example if u dont have enough Fel Iron or Cobalt u can go to shrine and learn the training project with ghost iron bars. The thing is, u have to go again to another trainer to learn next recipes if u wish to continue with classic way.

Comment by benhelmuth

The socket bracer or socket gloves spells are no longer in the game. :(

Comment by Belzeth

The starting quest item for each crafting profession, skill 600-700, is dropped by Dorogg the Ruthless when doing the quest "The Butcher of Bladespire" at Bladespire Fortress.

Comment by Shubi

--> Blacksmithing Can reduce your durability damage and increase work order output when assigned to the Forge.A follower with this trait can be assigned to work in the level 2 or higherForge.

When working in the building, the building's work order yield is increased (affected by the follower level) and you are allowed the use of two special buffs which are gained by talking to the working follower:

Before you can take Rulkan's quest to get her as a follower, you must go through the quest chain starting with Into Twilight, and eventually get Chasing Shadows which sends you up to Exile's Rise to meet Rulkan.

She will then give you the quest, Ancestor's Memory, which just has you hop down the cliff, go into the cave, and click the totem in back. She'll join you in the cave and show you a vision.

At the end, turn in the quest, and when you take the quest Rulkan, you get her as a follower.

In Frostfire Ridge, Initiate Na'Shra (65,0; 39,5) in Gate of the Breakers offers Smeltcraft for you and after completing it, Weaponsmith Na'Shral joins your garrison.

I hope this will help you! :D

Comment by Draewind

In WoW professions we now buid items that can rival the raid drop items and are far better than the dungeon drop items. They start small and can be made bigger and bigger. They all are created with what is called a <Random Enchantment>. We even craft items to take another roll at the <Random Enchantment> on the gear. The random enchant includes 2 of the secondary stats (giving us a measurable chance or RNG). Items for the Back (cloak), neck, neck, finger(ring), weapon, and shield, have a greater number of possibilities than other armor items, because they can contain the secondary statistics of Bonus Armor and Spirit (fortunately they do not include the combination of both those statistics ;-).

All of the items have a name in the form of "<ItemName> of the <RandomEnchantComboName>". If you click on the <RandomEnchantComboName> link, it will take you to a chart with all the possible names and combinations. I wish I could add a picture here.

Examples:"Steelforged Shield of the Guileful" would have Critical Strike and Bonus Armor as the <Random Enchant>"Truesteel Breastplate of the Harmonious" would have Mastery and Versatitility as the <Random Enchant> (I think I threw up a little bit there)

Most Armor Items:As we see from this graph, the number of possible <Random Enchantments> for most armor items will be 10. So, you have a 1 in 10 (1/10 or 10%) possibility of getting just the mixture of statistics you want.

Cloaks, Necks, Rings, Shields, Weapons:These items have an additional 2 statisctics added to the normal 4. The added statistics, as mentioned earlier, are Bonus Armor and Spirit (Tank and Healer statistics, respectively). Fortunately there is no combination of both Bonus Armor and Spirit (ever here of teats on a boar hog?)

Only weapon types intended for a healing class will have the possibility of Spirit, and only weapon types intended for a tanking class will have Bonus Armor. Weapons intended for both, will have the same chances as all the jewelry, cloaks, and shields. So if it can be enchanted (by enchanting) or is a shield, it fits in this class of item.

So your chances of getting the perfect necklace with just the right two secondary statistics is 1 in 20 (1/20 or 5%). I am not certain whether Bonus Armor and Spirit have the same chance of being included. If they are given a single chance and then chosen between the two, then your chance for an item with perfect statistics not including Bonus Armor or Spirit would be 1 in 15 (1/15 or 6.67%).

I would list here all the values associated with the <Random Enchantments>, however they vary depending on the slot and material. They also vary with the level of the individual wearing or looking at them.

There you have it. All the possible names and combinations. All items of the same level contain the same amount of statistic, such as "54 Critical Strike" and I have not seen a crafted item with a double a statistic (only one statistic but twice the value).